Wednesday, May 14, 2014

May 14 (BBC News Ukraine) Talks to end the crisis in Ukraine
are due to begin in Kiev, brokered by international monitors, but pro-Russian
rebels look unlikely to attend. The OSCE - a security and rights monitoring
group drawn from European and North American states - said Russian President
Vladimir Putin supported its initiative. A veteran German diplomat, Wolfgang
Ischinger, has been brought in to moderate Wednesday's talks. But reports
suggest that representatives of the pro-Russian separatists, who in any case
lack a single leader or agreed goals, will not attend the talks. Furthermore,
the interim government has refused to talk to separatists. "The government
in Kiev does not want to listen to the people of Donetsk," Denis
Patkovski, a member of a pro-Russian militia in Sloviansk, Donetsk region, told
the Associated Press news agency. "They just come here with their
guns." German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, currently visiting
Ukraine, said he hoped that Wednesday's talks would lead to the separatists
disarming and would also improve the atmosphere for the presidential election.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has held talks in Kiev and Odessa

German Chancellor Angela Merkel,
speaking in Berlin, said the more representative the talks were, the better. But
she added: "Clearly, people are only welcome if they can credibly show
that they are prepared to reach their goals without violence." Armed
separatists continue to occupy key government buildings in the east while
Russia denies fomenting the unrest just over its border.

Nato believes some 40,000 Russian
troops are deployed near Ukraine's border, although Moscow says they have been
pulled back. Russia annexed Ukraine's southern autonomous republic of Crimea in
March following a controversial referendum and the Ukrainian interim government
fears a similar outcome in Donetsk, Luhansk and parts of the south.

Charred wreckage a day after Ukrainian troops were ambushed in the east